Birchleaf pear

Photo: Globetrotter19 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Survives zone 4 through 8

Harvest calendar

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

Named for its birch-like leaves. So cold-hardy (to about -20°C dormant) and disease-resistant that orchardists use it as rootstock for cultivated pears more often than they grow it for its own small fruit, which in China is used to flavour rice wine.

Hardiness

Zone 4–8

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Fruit

Ripens

Sept–Oct

Mature size

Fast-growing, to 7.5 m (25 ft)

Light

Full sun

Soil pH

5.5–7.5 (mildly acid to mildly alkaline)

Environment

Temperate

Native range

Northern and central China and Tibet.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Years to fruit

4–6 yrs

Growth speed

Moderate to fast

Spacing

600 cm (236 in) apart — about 36 m² (388 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Alternate, ovate to lance-shaped, 4–8 cm, finely toothed and grey-downy when young — birch-like, which the epithet betulifolia records.

Root system

Deep-rooting from seed, with a strong early taproot — which is exactly why wild pears are grown as rootstocks. On a bought tree the roots are the stock's, not the species': pear seedling gives a large, deep, drought-tough tree, quince gives a dwarf with shallow roots that needs staking and watering for life.

Fruit description

Small, spherical, 5–11 mm across

Propagation

Seed, sown fresh in autumn (germinates mid-to-late winter) or given 8–10 weeks cold stratification at 1°C.

Pollination

⚠ Mostly SELF-INCOMPATIBLE — needs a partner. Pears carry a gametophytic self-incompatibility system, so a lone tree flowers heavily and sets little or nothing.

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.